


Accepting Your Inner Bastard

by ImhereImQuire



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: BDSM, D/s, Dom/sub Play, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 05:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImhereImQuire/pseuds/ImhereImQuire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike wants Angel to confess that even souled he's kinkier than he's willing to admit. So he buys him a book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It started out innocently enough, of all things considered.

‘What are you going to do, spank me?” had become Spike’s phrase of the month, which he could cope with, for the most part. His various friends and co-workers seemed prone to shaking their heads and muttering things about brain bleach and getting a room, but for the most part he shrugged it off, and that worked.

But when said spankings didn’t materialise then Spike’s behaviour began to get increasingly antagonistic. I am not going to be goaded into beating him into a bloody pulp, Angel told himself. Remember who has the power here. If you give into his persistent attention seeking then he wins. And if there was one thing that Angel was not going to tolerate it was handing over victory to a vampire half his age with some sort of undiagnosed attention deficit disorder. The chimps do not get given the keys to the banana cupboard, not in this house, not even when they're causing hell.

Count to ten, count to ten, count to…. No, this was definitely one of those situations where he needed to remove himself from the situation entirely, get something hot and red and calm down, he decided.

When Spike came in he was more than a little disappointed to find Angel sat reading. “Soo…” he said, but the older vampire ignored him.

“Good evening, boy” he said with forced mildness, after a sufficiently long time had passed and the younger was hopping from foot to foot awkwardly. “I was thinking that perhaps you and I could go down to the basement and let off a little steam” he said, and predictably enough the blond was half way out the door before he’d finished. “But that was before I had to spend the evening on the internet shopping for the pants to replace the ones that you *somehow* managed to bleach…an innocent mistake I’m sure, but an inconvenient one. Now I have work to do, so if you’ll excuse me” he made a small shooing gesture, and went back to researching the feeding and nesting habits of Galgorn’th.

Spike’s face was a picture, like a cartoon character who’d realised he was walking across nothing but air and Angel had to hide a smirk. God, this was almost too easy…and too fun. Power was a truly wonderful thing. “Oh…right then” his boy said, hovering awkwardly.

“You’re dismissed. Go and… do whatever it is you do nowadays. I’m busy.” Nobody the age of his childe –physical or actual- should have been able to make a pout look anything other than ridiculous, and the other vampire only half managed it, glaring accusingly before disappearing.

The sadist in him was clearly feeling the burden of restraint though, and the blonde only got as far as the doorway before he stopped him again. “Spike?”

“Yeah?” he smiled hopefully.

“Hang your coat up” he said, pointing to the crumbled up trench coat nestling on the stool opposite him.


	2. Chapter 2

“You are one sadistic cunt, Angelus” Spike declared once he was halfway down the hallway, realising that his was clearly intended to be his punishment. His least favourite kind, and one he would have been able to handle much better if he hadn’t been trying to get some attention ever since they’d been through the ordeal of having Angel’s soul permanently restored.

It had been well over a month, and the older vampire was still handling him with kid gloves and it was getting to him. They slept in the same bed, tangled together more often than not, and there were some lovely afternoons of eager mouths and wandering hands, but seriously, after a century his sexuality had progressed a little further than the kind of juvenile explorations that reminded him of his brief time as a boarder at prep.

What was the matter with his sire? Obviously the ponce had been on the bench for a while, but he had to have some sort of memory, if not vestigial instinct as to what went where and how. My wrist has been healed for weeks now, the blonde thought twisting it from side to side. He can’t still think that I need to be wrapped in cotton wool, can he?

But as the night wore on, and he was given more time to think about what exactly was going on. Angel was behaving like a schoolboy because in a lot of ways he was, if you separated the experience he’d clocked up without a soul. And given that he couldn’t even bring himself to share a name –or even heaven forbid an infamous pair of leather pants- with that period of his life then it probably wasn’t going to easy to convince him that a man didn’t have to be a soulless killing machine to enjoy breaking out the whips and the chains, which meant that trying to provoke him into flipping out was probably out of order. Time for a change in tactic, he decided.


	3. Chapter 3

When Angel came home the next night there was a present for him on the table, or at least that’s what he was interpreting it as; a rectangular package tightly wrapped in a black garbage sack, and a lot of duct tape; surprisingly neatly given the rough and ready nature of the packaging. Only one person he knew would go to that sort of trouble, without also resorting to wrapping paper.

Settling himself into his chair he began to slowly pick at the edges of the duct tape, trying to find some sort of beginning point before giving up and reaching for a letter opener. It was a book. A glossy but inexpensively produced, small publishing house sort of book, but not, as he had first thought, some sort of elaborate hoax cover put over a standard novel.

‘Learning To Love Your Inner Bastard: A Guide To Self-Acceptance For The Concerned Sadist’.

He just stared at it for a good five minutes, more than a little taken aback that such a book might exist, let alone in such an incredibly normal, human looking format. He didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted but eventually morbid curiosity overcame either possibility and he opened it.

The inside cover was marked with a familiar scrawl. ‘You’re not as unnatural as you think you are. Get over yourself. Love, Spike’.

An hour later and he was still reading.


	4. Chapter 4

Spike was astonished to find that his sire was actually reading his gift when he returned. Not that he’d managed to catch him in the act, exactly. Angel’s hearing and reflexes were far too well-honed for that, and Spike wasn’t exactly stealthy by nature, but he was shifty and trying entirely too hard to look as though he hadn’t been doing *anything* when Spike walked in and the younger vampire was pretty sure that he could guess why.

The blonde had only bought it to demonstrate. ‘Look, humans are into this sort of shit too!’, being the intended message, but he’d forgotten how fastidiously his sire pursued any craft he turned his hand to. Of course he’d devour it cover to cover…once he’d gotten over the exasperation that had made Spike decided it best to leave it lying around while he retreated to a safe distance.

“Fun evening, love?” he asked innocently, and was glad to see that the look on the older vampire’s face was mostly good natured.

“It was…illuminating. Where do you even go to find a book like that?” Angel asked. This had been something of a sticking point for him over the past couple of hours.

“We live in Los Angeles. I could have got it from any one of about four or five different places, being as the author is a local lady of some renown…. “ the blond was aware that he was being eyed suspiciously, and shrugged. “What? I already told you I’ve spent a couple of months on the sort of scenes where donors aren’t hard to come by. Connect the bloody dots, would you, Angel-cake. I’m a bad, bad boy who will take his filthy kicks where he can sodding well get them.”

Angel looked at the blond for a long time. This man, he thought to himself, this… sexual deviant has had numerous sexual encounters with Buffy Ann Summers. The thought did not bear thinking about, really, and left him in the bizarre scenario where the book was actually a safer and less disturbing subject to focus on.

“A lot of the particulars were a little…entry level, for me, but the underlying ethos made it worth a read.” He said, more as an attempt at scrubbing that image from his brain than anything else. “Check lists…etiquette, limits, contracts….” Spike could see the eerie glow of the obsessive compulsive in his sire’s eyes and wondered if he’d created a monster, but it was the last word that made the younger vampire squawk. “Safewords-”

He stood up, eyes narrowing. “Safewords? Are you fucking kidding me?! Safewords! Why do you always have to be such a nancy boy about-” Spike looked down and realised that there was a stake scraping down past his sternum, to press against the more vulnerable spot to its left. When he looked back up Angel’s face had taken a turn for the bumpy. There was a tense silence before the younger vampire decided it best to back down. “Point taken” he conceded with uncharacteristic diplomacy. “Whatever works for you, sire”

The stake was lowered and the older vampire’s fangs put away; a surprisingly tender kiss placed upon the other’s temple. “There’s my boy” he purred warmly, completely failing to acknowledge the not so subtle threat of death that he’d held over the other’s head just moments before. “You don’t want me to have the final say on how far is too far, do you now, lad?”

For once in his life the blond was quiet, shaking his head. And the look on his face was one of complete and unadulterated desire, all hazy eyes and shallow breaths. Angel would never really understand that response, when all was said and done, but he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of provoking it, all the same.


	5. Chapter 5

In the end they stayed up until the sun was almost set, just talking.

It had been hard for Spike at first; back in the day he’d used everything from misdirection to sheer bloody mindedness to disguise his fears from his sire, knowing that they would be used against him without mercilessly.  It had taken Angel admitting a few of his own, something he himself would rather have taken a few broken limbs than given up, back in the day.

He’d started by admitting how much of a big deal it was for him to have allowed the blonde to drink from direct from the vein. He’d only been able to bring himself to give the barest hinted at why, but even the vague allusion to The Master was enough for Spike to nod in empathy, and offer up something of his own.

“Almost drowned in my uncle’s pond when I was a kid” he volunteered. “And, like you know I can’t stand breathing in water, even now. Just can’t get it into my head that it won’t kill me and the panic sets in just the same.” It seemed a safe enough one to admit, the blonde thought. Angelus knew all about how much he hated that one… but he’d never told him the why. “And… really restrictive crap. Chain me up, tie me down, that’s all good but when I can’t move at all, or feel the air on my skin properly-“

“Claustrophobia sets in” Angel finished, remembering his own voyage to the bottom of the sea.

Angel for his part found it much harder to divulge what it was he actually did like than what he didn't, but Spike was happy to lead the way with that one.

“I love your voice, when you take that the ‘bad things are about to happen’ tone” he gave a grin that spoke of some extremely fond memories “And that start-off-slow and build up shit that your book probably advises… fuck that. I love it when you start off with a bang. Sudden impact out of nowhere really gets the adrenaline going, sets the bloody tone for the evening…”

Angel found himself surprisingly relaxed as he admitted things that he’d grown to think of luxuries only afforded those without conscience; the exhilarating rush he felt seeing fear reflected back in wide and panicked eyes, the satisfaction that he got from feeling someone squirming beneath his boot. He never felt more powerful than when he had someone helpless and hurting and just talking to someone about how erotic he found that power made him realise how much work he’d had to put into trying to convince himself otherwise.

 

 


End file.
